Reclaiming the Loch Ness Monster from the current tide of debunking and scepticism. If you believe there is something strange in Loch Ness, read on.

Friday, 7 August 2015

Loch Ness Monster report from 1998

When I was camping at Loch Ness last May, I met a young man by the name of Gary Northorpe who was working in the area. Naturally, (if I am involved in the conversation), matters turned to the Loch Ness Monster. Gary then volunteered information about a sighting he had as a kid.

He recounted that when he was 12 years old, he had been on a trip to Inverness from his home in Arbroath. In the car with him were his uncle, aunt and two cousins. It was a summer day and the weather was sunny and the loch had a flat, calm surface. Gary reckoned it would have been between 12 and 3pm as they motored down the A82 while he trained a pair of binoculars on the loch, hoping for a glimpse of the loch's famous resident.

As he continued to watch the waters, something appeared in his field of view in the middle of the loch. For up out of the water appeared a dark hump-like shape. Puzzled by what he was seeing, he continued to watch the object through the binoculars. After what he estimated was about five seconds, the object disappeared back into the water; no more to be seen.

Not surprisingly, when he excitedly told his car companions what he saw, no one believed him and they continued on and away from Loch Ness. Based on the fact that he was now 29 years old, we placed the sighting in the Summer of 1998.

I asked Gary to draw what he saw that day and it is shown at the top of this page. The drawing does indeed reflect the most common type of Nessie sighting, the single hump. Given he was now older and had had some time now to observe the moods of the loch, I asked if it could have been a boat wake he was witnessing. He discounted that explanation based on the dome shape of the object and the fact that it submerged.

Others may suggest that he saw a seal on a rare trip to Loch Ness. I wouldn't discount that possibility since we have a record of a seal in Loch Ness in the following year of 1999. Whether there was a seal in Loch Ness in 1998 is not clear and it is simplistic to call upon this solution purely on a convenience basis.

As a comparison, there is the video sequence below taken by Geoff Mitchinson perhaps only weeks after on the 5th September 1998. This is also a fleeting appearance of a hump like object. Are they the same creature? Seal or monster?

The main issue is the sighting lasted only five seconds and it is not clear how big the object was given it was exclusively seen in the narrow field of view of binoculars. If Gary had been on the shore and had time to continue watching, we may have had more information to aid an assessment of this possible Nessie sighting. You can read about more 1998 reports on Gary Campbell's sightings website.

As an aside, I also spoke to a lady who was working on the campsite who had seen something odd some months before as she looked out on the loch from Foyers. At first she thought it was some canoes making their way down the loch, but on a further look, she realised there was no canoes causing the wave patterns. I took note of what she said, but whether she saw something to do with the Loch Ness Monster is hard to say.

I have never used binoculars from a moving car but I imagine it can be quite tricky. It would be interesting to know if the far shore was in his field of view, which would give some indication of distance.

Whatever is in the 1998 video is very close to shore, in what is probably very shallow water. It is probably not a lake monster. The sighting could have been a boat - Dinsdale filmed something that looks just like the sketch, and some people say Dinsdale filmed a boat. I know Gary said he saw it surface, but if he was in a moving car looking through binoculars he would not be seeing the same section of water for very long at all. If it was a boat moving the opposite direction of the car it could appear in his FOV suddenly and then be just as suddenly. Trying to find that object again through binocs with both car and boat continuing away from each other would not be easy. Sounds like it could be a mistake by an eager for a sighting witness...

I been reading this 5 year old blog for the past 3 and a half years and I still haven't caught up with all the articles. So much to absorb and sort out to make a snap judgment. There's got to be something to the mystery. Loggin? Is there a logging industry at Loch Ness? I agree with Hank, It can be a hoot at times!

I give Me Wagner a 0-100 chance of existing.As regards the footage, it looks like a seal until you see the birds in the foreground. I'm quite familiar with seals swimming, but with the birds as comparison, it looks unusually large to be a seal.Waves that are seen from a low angle of view may converge to form what appears to be a solid object, so it would depend on Gary's angle from the road as to whether he had seen a wave. But it sounds like he didn't. I don't think I have ever seen a wave from a high angle of view that I could have mistaken for a solid object, and by high angle, I mean any that is higher than the shore really.